Henry Kolker


Joseph Henry Kolker was an American stage and film actor and director.

Biography

Kolker came to America at the age of five and his family settled in Quincy, Illinois. Kolker, like fellow actors Richard Bennett and Robert Warwick, had a substantial stage career behind him before entering silent films.
On stage he appeared opposite such leading ladies as Edith Wynne Matthison, Bertha Kalich and Ruth Chatterton. Kolker is best remembered for his motion picture appearances and for appearing with Barbara Stanwyck in the ground-breaking Pre-Code film Baby Face as the elderly CEO of the company whom Stanwyck's character seduces. Another well remembered part is as Mr. Seton, father of Katharine Hepburn and Lew Ayres in the 1938 film Holiday directed by George Cukor.
Kolker entered films as an actor in 1915 and eventually ended up trying his hand at directing. Kolker's best known directorial effort is Disraeli, starring George Arliss which is now a lost film with only one reel remaining. Prints however are said to exist in Europe and Russia.
Kolker was married to Lillian Carroll; they divorced in 1926. Soon after the divorce, he married Margaret Bruen.

Selected filmography

As actor

Kolker directed 18 feature films, per IMDb, most of them lost.